Guild Wars: The end of the Hall of Monuments

On Wednesday, I finally reached 30 out of 50 points in the Hall of Monuments. So for me, this part is finished and I don’t think I’ll ever take a look at it again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea and that they gave us something as a reward in Guild Wars 2. However, it’s just not my usual playstyle. Especially when it comes to Guild Wars.

Let me elaborate… I think I have mentioned it before that when I started with Guild Wars, I used this game to get away from annoying people. Most of them were from World of Warcraft at that time. ;) There I was, happily fishing in the Barrens, when I would get a message from somebody asking me to join raid X or come to instance Z. I declined and they wanted to know what I was doing in the Barrens (I played Alliance, though not by free will). Most people I knew in the game were understanding, but some were confused by my choice: Why would I prefer such a boring task over going raiding? The answer is easy: Because I do. What Guild Wars offers me is great: The whole content is open to me without requiring playing with other people. The most important part here is: I can play with others, but I don’t have to!

When the Hall of Monuments was announced, I thought it was a great idea. But I soon realized that in order to get all 30 points, I would have to stop playing the way I did (trying out the different classes, for example) and start focusing on things that give me points. So instead of levelling all characters to 20 like I had originally intended, I now had to do something that gave me enough platinum to buy elite armor. It led to me quitting the game, more or less. Whenever I logged on and felt like doing something, I had the feeling that I was wasting my time and should rather do something that gives me HoM points (a bit like the raid and the fishing above, only that my own wish to get those HoM points equal the raid leader here ^^). This may sound whiny and complaining but it isn’t. What I want to say with this is that instead, bookahnerk started farming areas for platinum (and using the German out-of-game auction house) and he gave me whatever he could, so that I could buy the things I needed (like the elite armor) to get those HoM points. He has reached 30 quite some time ago, by the way, but after that, he helped me reach them as well. I still did things myself, of course, but he helped me out so much because he knows I really wanted those HoM points (I really wanted the Rockfur Raccoon!).

And last week, I was only missing two more points. I had everything I needed for the Vabbi armor, I just had to get my necromancer’s behind over there. On top of that, I needed one more elite armor, so we chose the cheapest one and bought that as well. Then the last thing I needed was three more hero armor pieces (I had farmed the first ones myself, by the way. Everything that had to be achieved by playing, I did myself!) and so, bookahnerk joined me and helped me play the last few missions through Eye of the North. Here I am now, with 30 HoM points and after reaching those, I have started playing the game again. Because now, I play because I want to and I can do whatever I want to do without feeling like I was wasting my time. Oh, and my future ranger will have that cute cuddly spider as a companion!

I really loved seeing the Great Destroyer! I had tried my best not to read too much about the story in Eye of the North and I tried not to connect the dots between this and what we know has happened and will happen until Guild Wars 2. Seeing all this now makes me even more excited about Guild Wars 2. I am really curious to see how the story will evolve and what we will do to advance it. Or, more likely, what the game designers will allows us to see and do that will further develop the story. ;)

8 responses to “Guild Wars: The end of the Hall of Monuments”

I had a similar feeling about this. Guild Wars was my first MMO (I know it isn’t one) but after I played it for about 3.5 years, I pretty much quit playing just before the HoM Calculator was revealed. At first I didn’t really like it, but when I reached 30 points, there was this voice in my head, echoing, never stopping.
“Nur noch 5 Punkte für den nächsten HoM-Titel!”
“Komm schon, ‘Flammensucher’! Wäre doch toll, den Titel in Guild Wars 2 zu haben!”
“Sind doch nur noch ein paar Missionen, stell dich nicht so an!”
And here I am, doing the last ~15 prophecies missions for my Legendary Guardian title, while doing EotN missions and dungeons for those other titles.
The HoM brought me back to Guild Wars, and for that, I love it.

I only have dipped my toes in Guild Wars 1 yet so I don’t exactly know what the Hall of Monuments is and can only imagine the difficult of achieving something with it.

Still, I agree about the part of having that psychological pressure to do something in a game. It is not something I like in any game, even more so in a MMORPG where it often often ends up being compounded with peer pressure. My hope for Guild Wars 2, and the feeling I have been getting with the beta weekends so far, is that it won’t be as much of an issue.

Yes, Guild Wars 2 has achievements and all that but from what I saw they are purely fluffy and the kind I can live without. At least with stuff to do and classes I just feel like there won’t be much of any pressure and we can just do whatever suits our play styles better.

You need to own "Eye of the North". In this expansion, there is a location "Eye of the North" which is also home to the Hall of Monuments. Inside, you can hang up tapestral monuments (or whatver they're called) and unlock "achievements". You get the first 3 points for "linking accounts" which means you unlock your Hall of Monuments (because you link your expansion to your GW account). That's already 3 of the 4 cosmetic set items! :)

All in all, you will not receive anything of power in the HoM. But you will get fancy cosmetic stuff. At first, my goal was to get the kitty. Then I fancied the raccoon and in the end, I wanted that golem! ;)

I'm much happier now, though. I can finally level my remaining characters and not care about points anymore. Although I know that once I am in GW2 (post-release, of course), I'll be even happier with all my mini pets etc. ;)

When the hom calculator was released I was pretty much done with gw anyway. I felt like i had nothing to do and the calc confirmed that because the first time i typed in my name i already had 36 points.

I ended up getting to 50 out of sheer boredom/helping other people. The socialization alone was what allowed me to get there, not the game. I can’t even touch it now. Couldn’t even log in for the balth hound pet.

I assume you played the game a lot more than I did then. ;) Then again, I’ve been THE stereotypical casual gamer in GW. Always loved the game but there’s so much I haven’t seen – and so much I don’t want to see/play… no wonder I’m still far away from 50 points. ;)

Grats on achieving those, though. At least, you’ll have lots of titles to choose from in GW2.

I am at 5/50. Firstly, I am not a completionist. I play to have fun, but playing to grind out stuff is very hard for me to do. I end up getting very bored. Second, my account got hacked awhile back while I wasn’t playing. Most of my stuff was gone so I would have to work very hard to get to 30. I guess I just don’t have the motivation to do it.

Oh dear. I don’t think I would have the motivation to grind stuff again if I had lost it.

But I’m usually the same. I play to have fun not to grind. I wouldn’t have gotten that far without bookahnerk’s help and I’m very glad I did get it (he just likes doing other things in the game and fortunately for us, those things result in more platinum than my playstyle ^^). I am also glad that the whole stuff from the HoM is just cosmetic and nothing that gives us an advantage.